In The Tethered Mage’s Raverran Empire, magic is scarce and those born with power are strictly controlled — taken as children and conscripted into the Falcon Army.
Zaira has lived her life on the streets to avoid this fate, hiding her mage-mark and thieving to survive. But hers is a rare and dangerous magic, one that threatens the entire empire.
Lady Amalia Cornaro was never meant to be a Falconer. Heiress and scholar, she was born into a treacherous world of political machinations.
But fate has bound the heir and the mage. And as war looms on the horizon, a single spark could turn their city into a pyre. (via Goodreads)
I received an eARC of The Tethered Mage from Netgalley, courtesy of publisher Orbit Books, in exchange for an honest review.
I liked this book! However, I have a sort of funny confession to make. For like the first 20% of this book, every time the Doge, a very important figure in this story, is mentioned…. I THOUGHT OF THE DOGE MEME. If you don’t know the doge meme, you can find out about it here.
Once I got past my silly association, I really liked the story. It kept pleasantly surprising me. I loved how different the two main characters are. As you can see in the blurb, Zaira and Amalia are very different people and the story uses that to it’s advantage. I love how unapologetically sexual Zaira is, and how much Amalia genuinely believes in her family. I want more about Ciardha in the next book. Please?
There were a few times that I questioned why certain things were being focused on in the narrative, but it all pulled together pretty well at the end. I think it could have been a little bit tighter, but it worked well for me overall.
There’s a ton of political intrigue in The Tethered Mage, which kept tugging at my neural pathways until I realized what it reminded me of – a less queer, more in depth and slightly less magical The Traitor’s Tunnel (review HERE).
I was intrigued by the world, and I would definitely pick up the next book in the series. I’m very interested to see what comes next for Raverra! If this sounds like your kind of story, check it out on Amazon or Indiebound!
